


hands, blood, sins

by dregsghafa



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Somewhere in Season 1, after claire gets kidnapped and hits a guy in the head, this is far from accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-09 10:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11102565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dregsghafa/pseuds/dregsghafa
Summary: It'll take a few hours to wash blood away completely. Another few days for the scent to leave your nose.





	hands, blood, sins

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this ages ago but didn't have an account here so here i am posting it. severely unbeta'd, forgive my mistakes. i've been told that i succ^tm at tenses.

It'll take a few hours to wash blood away completely. Another few days for the scent to leave your nose.  
  
Matt decides not to tell Claire this. Even if he does, she won't hear him through the sobs she fills the room with.

He sits her in the bath tub and rubs both her arms to calm her down before leaving to get a fresh set of clothes, the first he could get his hands on. When he walks in, she's shaking again. The scent of sweat and tears mingling with the blood. She shakes her head desperately, a string of no's escaping from her lips. He detaches the shower head and sits on the floor beside her. Carefully, he guides her hands and enclose it in his.

"It's okay," he reassures again. "I'm here. I have you."

"I know," she says but her shaking doesn't cease.

Matt turns on the water and begins with her hands. He rubs the blood away, on her palms, the back of her hand, her fingers, her wrists and she watches. She knows he does this with knowledge and has done this a hundred times the same way he knows the hairs on the back of her neck are still up without touching it.

Claire looks at the hands that're cleaning hers. They're bruised and split not just from tonight, she's tended those before. It seems odd now that she's the one who needs care. Matt adds more pressure as he cleans the blood from the lines of her palm, the crevices of her fingers, the sides of her nails.

"Can you speak to me, Claire?" His eyebrows thread together like he was pleading to her. "Can you talk to me? Please?"

"They only beat me up, not cut off my tongue. So yeah, I can speak to you," she replies, trying to make light but the quiver of her lips defeats the purpose. Matt winces from her words and she knows he thinks it's his fault.

"How many?" She asks.

"How many what, Claire?"  
   
"How many…" She tries to find a euphemism for it and gives up. "Have you killed?"

She remembers how he paused the same way when she asked if the man she hit was dead. He replied, "It doesn't matter."

He laughs up a smile unconsciously as he takes her other hand and begins the same process over again.

"Preferably, none."

"In reality?"

"I stopped counting after ten," he says with no pause. She doesn't want to think he had no remorse for it. "That was a few years ago. Why'd you ask?"

"I don't know," she lies. She asked to make herself feel better. To convince herself that the man she killed today with a blow to the head is just a smudge compared to the men he's killed with his bare hands.

He knows this, of course. Matt knows what it's like to want to know the sins of others to feel better with your own.

A towel on her face snaps her back. She takes Matt by the wrist and it lingers there for a while.  

"Was he dead?" tears spilled again. "Did I kill him?"

Matt replaces the towel on her face with his hand to cup her cheeks. He sighs.

"Claire, he was going to kill you or you were going to kill him," Matt says. It isn't supposed to be reassuring, it's a fact. "You did what you had to do."

"Is that what you tell yourself?" He proceeds to cleaning the cuts on her face.

"Most of the time."

"Does it work?"

His eyes focus on her lips and if she tried hard enough, she could pretend he was looking into her eyes.

Not once did she ever think she'd find so much comfort from a blank pair of eyes.

"Almost never," he holds her hand again. "But it's better when you tell yourself a story."

They stay there for a few heartbeats or more.

"I'm sorry, Claire," Matt begins and he means it. He didn't ever mean to pull her down with him and his irredeemable soul. "I won't ever put you in that position again."

"Who said I was blaming?" She tries to laugh, can't bring herself to. "It's like what you said, I knew what I was getting myself into."  
   
 It's almost too familiar how much solace they felt from one another. Like it's from another life.

"I'm here," Matt repeats for the nth time tonight.

"I'm here too," Claire tells him and was going to be like that for a while.  
 

**Author's Note:**

> leave comments! :) im on tumblr! dregsghafa.tumblr.com


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